New Things to Complain About!

Kayla and Steve are going to pay the rent on an apartment that Joey and his almost-babymama, White Jade, are going to share with three other college kids! How could this possibly go awry?

They did a nice job converting the old Sami/Rafe apartment into a new set, and I definitely don’t mind having something else to look at, but this plan is objectively horrible, yeah? I get that Kayla and Steve are good people who don’t want to cast Jade out into the wind, but let me get this straight: Joey hopes that by sharing a living space with Jade and having her be dependent upon his family, he’ll be able to faze her out of his life? Ooooookay. College is not looking promising for someone.

As for White Jade herself:

The actress seemed to fit right in on her first day, but what was the point of this recast? I feel like their story wrapped up pretty naturally thanks to the miscarriage, and they could’ve brought this girl in as Joy Wesley (I know, Joey/Joy is problematic name-wise) and had her connected to other people on canvas and without the weird baggage of a character who never totally made sense to begin with.

Meanwhile, Hope was awfully fortunate that her nephew-by-marriage was the person who just happened to find her conked out in the woods.

Greg Vaughan’s harder look for this return is kind of jarring (even though I’d been prepared by photos), but he’s still embodying that soulfulness Eric had when he was a priest, albeit tempered by the weight of the mistakes he’s made. I’m eager to see what they have planned for him. I’m guessing he was granted early release from prison and planned to hide out from society, but it seems really weird that his father, who is the Police Commissioner, would’ve had no clue about this. Although for all we know, Roman could’ve actually mentioned it onscreen and we just couldn’t understand what the hell he was carrying on about.

Over in Prague, a city composed entirely of three rooms and an alleyway, everyone’s just about had it with Anna.

Not me, though! I’ve seen some comments from people who are upset that none of the other characters seem to be taking her mental illness seriously, but frankly, I’m just glad there’s some energy to this. Austin’s exasperation with her has been hilarious, and they’re balancing it out with Carrie telling him not to call her mom crazy. (Though could Carrie please shoot back once with, “At least she’s not trying to kill you, which is what I’ve had to deal with with your mother for two decades!”) Anna’s question about how Carrie could possibly have fallen for Rafe — who’s at his most unbearable right now — was delightful, too.

I do have to say, though, that while I’m enjoying the scenes, it all feels a little bit like a fakeout. We follow some regular characters to Prague to solve this Stefano mystery, and it turns into this dog-leg focusing mostly on Anna, Carrie, and Austin. It’s similar to shoehorning Hattie and Eric into Hope’s story, or having Laura pop up randomly in the Abigail story, or even the way Shane and Kim were the ones to bring Theresa the news about Mateo. It’s like they realize the stories are thin, so they wave a shiny thing (“Someone you used to like!”) in front of us to keep our attention. I mean, there are worse things, but it does feel a bit like a trick meant to prevent us from noticing that there’s very little actual story going on.

19 Comments on “New Things to Complain About!”

“Greg Vaughan’s harder look” – (meanwhile, how you, doin’ Greg??) at first glance I thought that was a pic of Guillarmo Diaz…he has the same hair cut…

“Roman could’ve actually mentioned it onscreen and we just couldn’t understand what the hell he was carrying on about” – this is hysterical and oh so true!!

I am LOVING Anna. Every line, every facial expression, every reaction…it just brings me so much joy. And, yes, I guess it has distracted me from the fact there’s very little plot and I just don’t care…I’ll take what I can get at this point.

You know, if they had written into that aspect of Roman’s cover-ups, this might’ve worked better. Like, “I can’t save my own son from prison, but I’m going to do what I can to save Hope and Joey, even though I know it’s wrong.”

wasn’t it the Governor of where ever the hell that pardoned him for saving his daughter? Or is Roman now a Governor?

Steve and Kayla are idiots re: child-raising….srsly. And I am back to could they make ‘Joey” ANY MORE idiotic and lame? Theo comes across better than this dude…..I am kinda sick of all of them…….
but
bringing Eric back? Good move. Love him. BUT what is with this haircut for men lately? Must be the new trenderinski because I see it all over the place on guys…..on TV….and the internets I mean….. I think his new look is great…..boy, did prison change him!!

well then….Eric goes to Mason City, up to the 39th floor, and talks to Alana on the ledge. She cannot believe he is there, that he came.

Back to Hope, who has been listening, tells him he is a wonderful man, his family has to be so proud of him. Well, Eric isn’t, because he told that girl a bunch of lies, love, trust, etc, doesn’t believe in any of it. He did not know Alana’s councilman father was now the governor, so he got paroled for saving the daughter’s life.

The governor pardoned Nicole for kidnapping Sydney thanks to the governor owing Anna a favor. I thought Anna came back to do the same for Hope. So Days recycled an aluminum can plot point into a slightly different aluminum can named Eric.

I behind on viewing so what is your early impression of “White Jade”? And is that the old staircase from the old loft? I know they had used that old staircase to lead into the room where Steve and Kayla found Ava’s shrine or whatever you want to call it.

There is a pretty good shot of the metal stairs from the loft in the second half of this clip when Bo starts to build the fire…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02GyuZzI13o. I do know Stephen Nichols said those stairs were reused for the set during the Ava story so I bet they are the same.

On an unrelated note I can’t help but laugh at poor Tom Horton at the end of this clip. And oh how I love Kayla and those 80s sweaters with the huge shoulder pads!

I never thought I would say this because I didn’t much care of the way Eric was written after Greg Vaughn took over the role but, I’m glad he’s back and I’m liking his new rougher, tougher persona. I’m waiting patiently for his reunion with Nicole.
White Jade is very pretty and her acting tops Claire and Ciara. I don’t really see much of point in recasting Jade after the miscarriage; I thought they would just phase Jade out because Joey didn’t really want to be with her anymore and nobody in Salem really likes her anyways. Then again, IF they revisit Joey murdering Ava (it seems like they are) Jade plays into it; Jade is the only other that knows other than Uncle Roman and Joey’s parents and she’s a wild card.

Really? I found GV’s Eric such a breath of fresh air for a Days male. He was vulnerable but still had strong beliefs; he could be judgmental, but they actually had people (Nicole!) call him out on that rather than everyone praising him for being right. I can still see that guy underneath this world-weary version, so I’m into it. (I didn’t really like him in 2014-15, when they just had him barking at Nicole for being a garbage person…)

That’s a good point about Jade’s involvement in the Ava stuff. Given some recent spoilers, I have an idea of how that might play out. Okay, I’m somewhat interested again. 🙂

See that…every cloud has a silver lining 😉 The writers are going somewhere with this and we actually get to see some of the teens involved in more than just some really bad after school specials. Also, we only have to put up with Ciara for maybe another 4-5 months.
I always saw Eric as Sami’s opposite. It’s a shame the twins didn’t have a lot screen time together last time they were both in town. Sami never calls, writes, or visits anymore.

I can’t believe Ciara is still going to be around for MONTHS. Good grief. They’ve clearly minimized her screentime, but it’s crazy how big a gap there is when they try to course-correct.

I always viewed Sami and Eric as opposites, too. I wasn’t a fan of the decision to have him kill Daniel in that accident (aside from the part about Daniel winding up dead…) because it didn’t feel like the kind of extreme thing the “good twin” should ever be saddled with. But I guess they want to make him grey, so I’ll see what they have in store.